


and now to rest

by JadeClover



Series: star-hewn colossi [15]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 08:10:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12338811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeClover/pseuds/JadeClover
Summary: Haggar cannot sleep, but she finds assistance from an entirely likely source.





	and now to rest

**Author's Note:**

> Because of the Soft. You just gotta write some unrepentant fluff sometimes, y'know?

Her lord's quarters are a kind of austere luxury, everything an emperor needs but nothing he does not desire. Clean spaces, sharp lines, but there is a personal touch few could identify—the broad view of the stars in every room, a viewport from floor to ceiling. It is no mere luxury, nor a simple facet of design—the stars are a part of him, the sight almost integral to his being. To watch them soothes her lord in ways she cannot understand... though, do the stars not also soothe her? They do, but it was not always so; after millennia by his side, the habit has finally found a home in her.  
  
The viewports are perhaps her favorite of his quarters' many features. Odd that it is not something more practical she prefers—a chair, for a mundane example... but though chairs may be useful, they are not beautiful, and they satisfy nothing beyond physical comfort ( _and they are far too large for her here regardless, as her emperor prefers furniture that suits his height_ ).  
  
( _She does not care for beauty. She is not fond of splendor. It is in her nature to value bare utility and function, but the stars are in her nature now, too._ )  
  
With her knees drawn up, she sits in a pool of shrugged-off blankets—her lord's blankets, in her lord's bed, as that is where she has chosen to sleep tonight. Beyond the viewport, the towering starscape is interrupted only by the rings of the command system and the slow glide of traffic between. Naught but a handful of ships are in motion, only the automated, drone-staffed cargo transports. It is the night cycle—all the living are asleep.  
  
She would be sleeping as well if some dream or sound or twist of fate had not pulled her from it. A mere two vargas is not enough, for all she rarely needs to sleep. What keeps her awake? She does not know, nor does she understand why she cannot simply shut off her mind as always, but her thoughts are prickling like circuitry given current, her limbs too _alive_ to let her rest.  
  
A small sigh. She tilts her head toward the stars and rests it on her knees, the sight all that remains before her. Would that she could lose herself in it, but for all the view is pleasant, serene, a quiet comfort, it is no help at all. She knows futility well, and that is what this has become. Only time will lull her back to sleep, if even that, though in some stubborn corner of her mind she will still try, reaching, as exhaustion is a waste she can neither abide nor afford.  
  
She cannot be so stringent with the rest of her mind; she must turn it loose and let it roam free, let it spiral out like a galaxy, bright with the seedlings of dreams but strangely dull and barren of productive thought. As she sits, she thinks of nothing. Even when restlessness stirs her, when she must curl a foot, twist her fingers, when she angles her head and looks to her lord, her mind remains strangely still.  
  
Lightly, at first, she watches him, but her gaze grows slowly more focused as she turns to _studying_. She traces the lines of his face, softened by sleep, and follows the loose sprawl of his body. A flick of her ears, and she listens; his breathing is slow and deep, near-silent. He sleeps calmly and peacefully, free from the dreams that used to twist in his head and make themselves fears. The nightmares are not _over_ —they never are, and they do not always leave him be, but for now they do, and his sleep is sound.  
  
Good.  
  
She curls her shoulders, resting folded arms on her knees. Too many times has she meditated to the sound of his breathing; by habit alone, it seeks to turn her mind blank. If she makes the attempt, she may be able to fall asleep to this.... but does she truly want to anymore?  
  
( _Her mind is a fickle thing; it obeys inertia well. It clings to rest while it is resting but will resist sleep so long as she can still form a single thought._ )  
  
On a whim, she shifts closer, her movements slow enough that they will not disturb, the silken sheets a cool slide against her legs. She props herself on one hand and peers down at his sleeping face, the other hand lifted—( _and here, a pause_ )—before she rests her fingertips on the angle of his cheekbone, trailing them down to the line of his jaw.  
  
_Warm._ And soft, as Galra are—not smooth. He does not stir at her touch, but she had not wanted him to. She did not want to disturb his rest. She merely...  
  
( _What_ did _she want?_ )  
  
Her eyes trail over the slackness of his face, and, head tilted, some part of her commits it to memory. Now her hand grows bolder, the palm laid flush against his cheek. It is... such a _small_ hand, when compared to him—though that is not new. Her lord has a proclivity for being prodigiously large, even among Galra, and she has an ( _unfortunate_ ) proclivity for being Altean.  
  
What a pair they must make.  
  
Beneath her hand, his face shifts—no warning whatsoever. Surprise very nearly draws her back, but she keeps her hand still through sheer effort. Her eyes find his—a pair of sleepy, violet slits watching her from a half-woken haze.  
  
_Carelessness_ —she had not meant to wake him. Does he not usually sleep deeper than this?  
  
Her own eyes narrow in a small blink. _Friendliness,_ the Galra textbooks would say it means. _Benevolence. I mean no threat._ In the language of their own, it is merely, _I did not mean to disturb._  
  
His eyes fall shut again, and when they open it is with such a slow drag that they would clearly prefer to remain closed. _You did not,_ he says with the easiness of it. And, unintentionally: _I am tired._  
  
_Sleep then, sire._ Her thumb ghosts over the softness of his cheek.  
  
A small shiver, barely felt, as though her touch is made of fire and ice. His eyes slip closed, his breath a soft, contented rumble, but he will not heed her—he does not sleep. Stubborn, resistant, he pulls his eyes open again, struggling for awareness but still insistent on watching her.  
  
Very well.  
  
If he will not rest, she will not look away; if he gives her no reason, she will not withdraw her hand and break this quiet, gentle accord between them. Does this touch please him? He does not lean into it, but he is also barely awake. Unconscious, self-conscious, her hand shifts, just a fraction, but his eyes close in a slow blink. _Happiness_ —and a truer expression of it than he would allow himself during the day.  
  
So it _does_ please him.  
  
When he opes his eyes again, he has at last dredged up some measure of alertness in them. _Do not,_ she thinks, a frown on her lips. There is no need to mire them both in insomnia.  
  
"Can you not sleep?" he asks. His is low and rough, but enough so that it has become soft.  
  
A small shake of her head, her hair falling around her. "No."  
  
Her lord does not look away, but he does shift and extend his arm where it lies on the bed. An invitation. Does he truly think that will help?  
  
Though, who is to say it will not?  
  
She withdraws her hand at last, trailing it against his skin and letting it fall back to her side. Acquiescent, agreeable, and almost strangely enamored by the notion, she draws close; lying down, she curls into the space offered between his arm and his body. The arm closes around her, not enough to feel like a cage, simply a warm presence at her back to match the one at her front.  
  
She presses her forehead against his side, and his claws come briefly to card through her hair, gentle and careful as always, but only for a moment; he drops his hand back to the mattress as though the effort to keep it raised is too much. A deep, resonant breath, a heavy rise and fall of his chest, and even if she could not read it in the stillness of his quintessence, he is quite clearly mere ticks from sleep.  
  
She traces her fingertips lightly over the muscles of his side. _Sleep well, sire,_ she thinks, as though he can actually hear her ( _but knowing him, he will understand the sentiment regardless_ ).  
  
Now, finally, she is ready for sleep. She reaches once more for the sound of his breathing and closes her eyes, letting her thoughts slow to that familiar, meditative stillness. Deeper in her mind, where she gives her more private ideas leave to roam, she thinks one last thing to him:  
  
_Sleep well, my husband._  
  
She will have a restful night; would that he might as well.

**Author's Note:**

> That's a common law space zombie marriage, by the way. All marriage records were (probably) lost with the destruction of Daibazaal, and Haggar doesn't remember that anyway.


End file.
